news
October 27, 2008
Quebec ads aim to attract new hunters, brush up sport's image
MONTREAL – Quebec hunters have launched an advertising blitz to burnish the image of their sport and entice urbanites to go for the kill across the province.
Quebec's hunting and fishing federation is running punchy French-language newspaper ads to sell what it believes are the healthful and environmental benefits of the chase.
The bold-lettered messages include: "Hike and grocery shop at the same time," "Eat organic" and "Popular for the past 3 million years."
The federation, which has partnered with the provincial Natural Resources Department for the project, also unveiled a website (pourquoichasser.com) filled with information on how to get a gun licence and recipes for preparing game.
The $150,000 campaign aims to improve the sport's sometimes negative reputation in urban settings and encourage city slickers to step out of their condos, pick up a weapon and head for the wilderness.
"It's a sport that is a little disliked in some circles," said federation spokeswoman Annie Guertin.
The advertising push is about raising the profile of hunters and building respect for their sport.
"It's a bit of an image campaign ... to modify perceptions about hunting," she said.
Guertin said hunting has deep cultural ties and pumps millions of dollars into Quebec's economy.
She also said the pastime keeps wildlife populations in check.
"It has lots of advantages," she said.
The federation estimates 1.1 million Quebecers have a hunting permit and 475,000 hunt regularly.
In the last seven years, the number of Quebecers who have obtained hunting permits has increased and the federation hopes the sport will continue to grow, Guertin added.
But Barry MacKay, the director of Animal Alliance of Canada and Zoocheck Canada, argues organizations and governments are scrambling to beef up hunters' ranks because the sport is in decline across the continent.
He said licensing is an important revenue source and it comes at the expense of conservation.
"It employs people whose job it is to manage hunters. So, the fewer the hunters, the less employment," he said.
MacKay said applying the phrase "wildlife management tool" to hunting sends a false message.
"If they just said they want to go out and kill things, fine, but they make it sound like if they don't hunt we're going to be overrun by rabid wildlife," he said from his Markham, Ont. home.
"For the human race to call any species overpopulated is a little bit ironic. We're the species that's starving in large numbers because of overpopulation."
MacKay, an avid birdwatcher, said many hunters deserve a bad rap because of the garbage trails they leave in the woods. He claims he's even been shot at.
"There's a reason why they have that image," he said, noting that not all hunters have poor manners.
But Jim Schaefer, a Trent University biology professor and occasional hunter, believes hunters are more in tune with nature than others.
"Hunting is a means with which we can maintain that connection with the out-of-doors," said Schaefer, an expert in wildlife population dynamics.
"I tend to think hunters are likely more committed to conservation than those that don't hunt.
"It seems counterintuitive to the non-hunting public that shooting animals and eating them could be good for their conservation."
He said wildlife managers have used hunting as a means to control animal numbers, but noted the whole idea of overpopulation is largely a human perspective.
Managers usually decide populations need to be reduced when too many vehicles collide with deer or when geese overgraze, MacKay said.
